Publisher’s Comments:What would you do if you found out your dotty old Gran wasn’t from Surrey after all, but from a planet six hundred light years away across the galaxy? Not only that but she’s really an exiled Princess from a Royal family that has been virtually wiped out by a tyrannical usurper. Would you believe it?

That’s the question being asked by Caroline, Alex and Emily Wright, after moving in with Gran when their Father loses his job.

But you might find it easier to believe, if you were actually standing on that self-same planet looking into a sky with two suns.

That’s the situation in which Caroline, Alex and Emily find themselves when they accidentally get transported across the galaxy.

Would you join the fight for freedom against the tyrant, if that was the only way to get back home to Earth?

The planet of Antares — its people, its technology, and its sociopolitical makeup — are very well delineated, and several of the characters fit genre archetypes without coming across as clichéd or one-dimensional. Pope’s portrayal of the Wright siblings in particular, three seemingly ordinary Earth children who are thrust into an extraordinary birthright and an equally extraordinary world, rings very true to me as a reader.

This trilogy is marketed as “for readers of all ages from 10 to 100″, and indeed, as an adult reader, I found the book incredibly intelligent and sophisticated while still being very kid-friendly. Few childrens’ books would include a passage, for example, that has Emily asking if her seemingly dotty Gran suffers from Alzheimer’s. Also, the word “damn” appears three times, and an Antarean equivalent of “the F-word” appears. That Mr. Pope includes these elements yet remains tasteful speaks volumes about his ability as a writer.

Final Thoughts:PR Pope has written a novel that promises to appeal to all ages and delivers on that promise. His writing is intelligent and utterly lacking in heavy-handedness. His characters are three-dimensional, and he has clearly put much thought into his world-building. I will watch for the second and third entries in this trilogy with great interest.